As you likely already know, the original music competition was canceled due to unforeseen circumstances.

HOWEVER we have decided to host our own UNOFFICIAL competition. Discussions on the topic started here, if you are curious.

It is similar to the original competition, but the entries will not be judged by RTG. Instead they will be judged by your fellow fans. They will also not be included in the game in any official capacity. We have been told, however, that there will be a way to mod our own tracks into the game, so Fans may choose to add your music as some ambient music in the game.

Our unofficial album will have three “sides” or categories.

Side A – Songs Inspired by Stark

Side B – Songs Inspired by Arcadia

Side C – Miscellaneous (This can include songs that either don’t fit with either Stark or Arcadia, or songs that are inspired by other locals such as the Storytime.)

Competition rules

The contest will run from Saturday, August 30th until 23:59 CET October 11th, 2014. Your contribution(s) must be submitted within this timeframe. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Every contribution must be of your own creation. We’re poor fans, this is totally unofficial. Please don’t do anything shady that could get us in trouble.

This is totally unofficial, so you retain all rights to your music. By submitting your music to the contest, however, you are giving fans permission to use it and enjoy it in their own mixes or mod it into the game.

Voting to select winners will begin shortly after the submission deadline. Details to follow.

Winners get full bragging rights and will be included in the final compilation, though all submissions will be retained in a larger Unofficial Unofficial Playlist.

You are allowed a maximum of one (1) submission per “section” of the album, for a total of three (3) submissions. Meaning you may submit one song for Stark, one song for Arcadia, and one song for Misc. If you have additional songs for each area, you are welcome to share them with the community, but they will not be counted as official entries.

You are not required to submit more than one track unless you want to.

How to submit a track

Upload your music (the higher the quality, the better) to the Soundcloud group we have created here. Please tag each entry with either #DFCStark, #DFCArcadia or #DFCMisc so people can easily tell what part of the album the song is meant for.

If for some reason you do not feel comfortable using Soundcloud, please let me know. We will figure out a workaround. .

Once all of your submissions are uploaded, send me a single PM with the following information:

Name and length of track(s) submitted.

Part of the album each track is intended for.

Best method of contacting you (either via PM or an email address if you prefer)

Direct link to your submission(s).

Do NOT attach any files to your message! Attached files will be discarded. Only download links are accepted.

In case this moves beyond the forum or you are a lurker who does not want to register for an account here for whatever reason, you may email your submission information to DFCMusicContestUnofficial@gmail.com. Please put Unofficial DFC Music Competition in the subject line.

Do NOT attach audio files or any other documents to your email. These will be discarded.

How to submit a track for the general playlist

If you want to submit a track for the community playlist but either do not want it included in the contest or have already submitted your entries, but want to share some more sweet tunes, you may add them to the Soundcloud above via the same method described. I suggest also tagging these entries with #DFCBonusTrack as well as their location tag so people are aware that they aren’t proper entries.

For these entries, you do not need to PM / Email.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to post or PM me.

Also, PLEASE spread the word about this contest. Do your best to get the word out so everyone who wanted to participate in the original contest knows that this exists.

Best of luck!

~*~*~*~

FAQ

Why are we limiting the number of entries per category?

Because that seemed to be more or less the largest consensus among people who were discussing participating. It also evens the playing field and prevents one or two people from totally cleaning house. Again, remember, you can unofficially submit as many tracks as you want for community enjoyment, but pick your best in each category for the unofficial contest.

One of the other reasons for doing this is that a select (to be determined) number of tracks will be chosen for each side, where as RTG sort of had the luxury of picking as many or as few tracks as they wanted in the old contest. So we're adjusting the rules a bit to make it support the "album" final product we're creating.

Was the ability to add our own music to the game confirmed?

I'm not going to hold Ragnar to anything, as unexpected issues can come up, but a quote from the man himself:

Good news, everyone!

(Please read that in your best Professor Farnsworth voice.)

After seeing all the positive initiative in this thread, and after a brief chat with our chief code dude this morning, we've decided to put support for music modding high up on our to-do list. In other words, you'll be able to place your own music into a directory and have it play throughout Europolis — and, later, Marcuria.

It's not the same as having the music be part of the game proper, but it's a decent compromise. And if our community creates an unofficial compilation album, we will definitely make sure players know about it. Without making it seem like we're taking advantage, of course.

And, hey, if you want Taylor Swift to blast out of every bar and radio in Europolis, you'll have that option, too.

My music doesn't have any vocals? Is that an issue?

I suppose maybe I could have used the word "track" over "song," but lyrics are not a requirement for something to be a "song." So songs without vocals are more than welcome. In fact, some people might prefer them! Time will tell. Seriously, though, you can submit anything that you consider music. Half the fun of this is getting exposed to new and interesting musical styles.

Why don't you allow more entries for X part of the album?

Okay, if quantity of entries for a particular area is seriously lacking, we can reasses this, but for now it basically boils down to fairness and I think it will even itself out.

If we said that say, more people might want to submit Stark songs than Arcadia songs and allowed people to submit two Arcadia songs, then people who only want to submit for Arcadia would get two entries while people who maybe only wanted to submit for Stark would only get one. Keeping it to one per area offers an additional challenge to the participants. If they want to maximize their entries, they may have to think outside the box a bit or try something new. Which is half the fun of a totally unofficial and not for prizes contest.

Who do I contact if I have more questions?

You can contact myself or jlddodger. The latter especially if it pertains to Soundcloud issues.

I will update this with more questions as needed, though I may be quiet for the rest of the weekend. Got a writing contest to work on.

You must pick your TWO (2) favorite entries for each category. This means everyone has a total of six (6) votes.

Contestants are allowed to vote. You can vote for yourself.

You must complete the entire voting form.

The first question is a security question to weed out any potential "spam" votes. The question is "Who is April's sidekick named after?" The answer is Crowboy.

The system is set up to more or less force you to follow this rules, however I'm sure there are ways around them. Please be honest and don't cheat the system. If I catch anyone trying to rig the vote, I will be forced to disqualify them (if they are a contestant). And also you will get lots of scorn. SCORN.

I agree with the others here, amaaaaazing work! I am very happy you guys are taking charge and handling this, because I wouldn't know how to manage a competition like this.

I pinned the thread, and put "(discussion)" in the title of the other thread. Although I'm not sure if both should remain sticky. If discussions will continue here, or of it's reserved for discussions after the deadline. I mean, it is possible to keep both pinned, add a link to the "discussion thread" in the OP here, and then lock this until we get closer to the deadline or something. Let me know what you think is best

Nice job on organizing a fan music competition. That is a great way to lighten up the general mood of a community.

Not a musician myself, but I am looking forward to hear what others came up with.

I could always pester my friend to record some tracks, but that would be rude.

I have a couple of questions though:

Why we are limiting number of entries per category to one?

Was ability to add our own music confirmed by developers?

I think its a good move. A few productive and professional artists could easily overwhelm the submissions with already created songs which would kill the diversity and exposure of all entrants. I'd like some encouragement for new material inspired by the latest released info from the game.

Yes, Ragnar confirmed that they have put it high on the todo list to make folders available to drop your own music into which would appear as diegetic music in the game.

What do you mean by "song"? My music doesn't have any vocals, being purely classical (piano / string quintet for example). [Would "track" be better or are you really expecting only vocals?]

The songs already submitted to the discussion thread was anything. IIRC the original rules stated that the submissions could be any genre and there really isn't any restrictions on what you make except that you should try to make it fit the Dreamfall/TLJ universe.

Why not allow more entries per person for Arcadia, say 2 og 3? Since most of the tracks I presume and guess would be for Europolis with tecno-like sounds. Tracks for Arcadia and Storytime could be more rare, and it would be nice if we don't end up with too much techno sound on side C also.

there's 3 compositions that I never fully worked out but were directly inspired by the first TLJ game and soundtrack. Gonna try and work on that next week, and it so happens there are 3 secions they can apply for

Great idea! If the end result is as good, an alternative downloadable music pack could be a good release format. It could be download through Steam Workshop or through GOG release or elsewhere if the final music pack isn't accepted by these digital platforms/RTG.